Friday, May 26, 2017

The Crumb Layer For Business

Starting out as an entrepreneur is an exciting but daunting time - especially if you are a beginner. There are people who start up, fail with what they’re doing and then try again with something completely different to their original idea a couple of years from when they first started. Just because they’ve done it before doesn’t mean that it’s any less of a heart-racing career change than before. This is something that definitely takes guts to do; who else do you know that will drop their 9-5 to branch out on their own? If you’re already within a circle and know quite a few people, then you’re in good stead. If you’re doing it alone, you may need just a little bit of advice from those who have preceded you.

Aim High - But Don’t Go For The Top

You will only grow despondent if you can’t achieve what you have set out to achieve within a small time limit. Unfortunately nowadays, we are in the mindset of having an instantaneous result; it’s not our fault, as it is something that’s provided to us everywhere. We can check if we are eligible for a loan online within minutes, go out to get our food fast from a drive thru and don’t even have to trouble ourselves with getting money out and paying anymore - we simply tap our cards on top of a machine. With that in mind, there’s no wonder that we are wanting something that we need to work hard for right now. However, that’s exactly what we should not be doing. We need to ground ourselves and take a reality check. There is no business in the world that has got to where it is now without giving itself a bit of time to achieve its success. Time can also lead to you downfall, so don’t hang around if you want something to happen; it’s a delicate balance that you will find out more about when you experience it, and this is something that can’t necessarily be guided on.

Utilise What’s Around You

You don’t have to pay for content for it to be good. Sites such as www.entrepreneur-resources.net are there and available for you to take advantage of. The best things in life are free, right? Those who have discovered success want to share it; the ones who are charging you for it are still on their way up and using you to get there. There is nothing that you would pay for that would have anything that’s absolute gold dust in it when you’re planning on creating your startup. The fact is that so many people have done it before, and they’re mainly all entrepreneurial millennials who are more than happy to actively engage with you via a tonne of different mediums online, be it social media, email or community forums. If you know somebody who has gone down the startup route, pick their brains for their recommendations and their dos and don’ts to starting your own business. There is a lot to be learned from those who have succeeded, but also from those who have failed.

Get Everything In Order

Just as you’re not really meant to be able to effectively work in a messy space, it’s exactly the same for everything else to do with your business. Accounts need to be kept up to date - especially in your first year, when the fineprint to it all is crucial. If you know that you won’t be able to handle your accounts yourself, take a look around online and see if you can outsource the work. This isn’t cheating, nor is it not putting in as much effort as you wanted to - you are simply saving your time to focus on revenue-generating jobs which are the building blocks of your startup. Outsourcing can often save you money as well as time, although it may not seem like it when you first cough up the cash to the freelancer or company that you’re using. Think about how many hours it would have taken you to get everything sorted out on a wage that you’d like to be receiving (if you’re not paying yourself yet) and calculate how much you would have spent compared to offloading it onto outsourced staff. Chances are that you are saving quite a bit.

Be Confident In Yourself

Think about walking into a restaurant and asking for their best-selling dish. The waiter acts really coy about it and says “yeah, well, it’s alright, I guess” when you say that you’ve heard rave reviews about it. Would you really want to carry on and try it? There’s no point in being modest when you want to sell your product or service. You have to sell yourself as well as what you are promoting. Believe in yourself and have the confidence to convince others that they need what you have. It can be hard to do - especially if you’re a naturally shy person - but it is definitely a trait that can be learned. You only have to go to the best business seminars and networking groups to see that the ones who stand out to you and who you want to find out more about are the ones who light up the room and get you invest in what they’re speaking about. You need to get your customers to invest their time and energy into you - you’ll only see good results financially.

Promote Everywhere

Who says that self praise is no recommendation? It doesn’t have to come personally from you - the internet can hide your real life persona and give you a facade to hide behind when posting. If you set up social media accounts, such as the recommended ones from https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-for-business/, make sure that you are giving them the attention that they deserve to get a better engagement from your audiences. The great thing about using social media for business, especially startups, is that it can give you insights on to who is seeing your posts, and what the demographic is that you’re targeting.